Showing results by narrator "BJ Harrison" in Genre Fiction

Everett’s brother rocked the world with his incredible musical talent. And Everett is…fine. But he’s okay with that. He’s a member of “a certain lovable class of men who never accomplish anything in particular”. But when traveling in the West, Everett meets a remarkable woman who is dying, and discovers that she has a history her brother, he gives her the greatest gift of all during her final days—the gift of understanding.

Twelve billionaires rule the United States, while those called freemen are forced to serve the rich. But that was 60 years ago, before the Scarlet Plague. In this post-apocalyptic novella, a ragged and tattered old man tells his progeny of what life was like before The Scarlet Plague appeared - and wiped out civilization as they knew it.

Adam had a fine life. He had all the food he wanted, a fine garden to live in, and miles and miles of peace and quiet. Until one day, a woman entered his life. And amongst her other garrulous qualities, she says that his beautiful garden doesn't really look like a garden at all. She thinks it looks more like a park.

“Wake up! Wake up, there! Murder!” A hostler spits out these vehement words while he turbulently sleeps. He is haunted by a phantasm. It is a phantasm with a droop in the left eye, long flaxen hair, and a long buckhorn clasp knife.

A stagecoach containing a microcosm of French society seek to escape to Le Havre during the Prussian war. Stopping at an inn along the way, they soon realize they have blundered into Prussian occupied territory. The travelers are not allowed to leave until one woman, a prostitute known as Boule de Suif, (literally suet dumpling, or ball of fat), sleeps with the commanding officer. This turn of events is met with universal indignation by the travelers. But as the days stretch out, everyone’s true colors are revealed.

After battling the tempestuous sea, four men in a boat finally spy land. But will the process of getting to the land be their undoing? Based upon Crane’s experience of surviving a shipwreck when traveling to Cuba, The Open Boat is an excellent example of literary Naturalism. H.G. Wells considered it “the crown of all [Crane’s] work”.